Description

After the war, filled with new ideas, Max Ernst, Jean Arp and social activist Alfred GrÃ¼nwald formed the Cologne, Germany Dada
group. In 1918 he married the art historian Luise Strausâ€”a stormy
relationship that would not last. The couple had a son who was born in
1920, the artist Jimmy Ernst. (Luise died in Auschwitz in 1944.) In 1919 Ernst visited Paul Klee and created paintings, block prints and collages, and experimented with mixed media.

He also created another technique called 'grattage'
in which paint is scraped across canvas to reveal the imprints of the
objects placed beneath. He uses this technique in his famous painting
'Forest and Dove' (as shown at the Tate Modern).

The next year he collaborated with Joan MirÃ³ on designs for Sergei Diaghilev. With MirÃ³'s help, Ernst pioneered grattage in which he troweled pigment from his canvases. He also explored with the technique of decalcomania which involves pressing paint between two surfaces.